Porn star Stormy Daniels described her 2006 encounter with Donald Trump in unflattering terms at his criminal trial in New York on Tuesday, testifying she tried not to think about the sex while it took place and feared it would become public.
For several hours, Daniels, 45, offered details on the witness stand about her encounter with the former U.S. president, 77, and the hush-money deal she reached to stay quiet about it ahead of the 2016 election, when he won the White House.
She told jurors that her life descended into “chaos” after the arrangement was made public in 2018, saying she was ostracized and harassed at her home.
“Who do you understand Mr. Trump to be referring to as ‘horseface’ and ‘sleazebag’ in this post?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Daniels as she displayed a social media post by Trump.
“Me,” Daniels replied.
Questioned by Trump’s lawyer, Daniels said she hates Trump and hopes he goes to jail if found guilty.
Daniels’s testimony prompted Trump’s legal team to ask for a mistrial, arguing that her account included details — such as the fact that Trump did not wear a condom — that “inflamed” the jury and were irrelevant to the case.
Justice Juan Merchan denied the request.
Trump, the presumed Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election, did not react as he watched Daniels testify. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 US hush-money payment to Daniels and denies ever having sex with her.
His legal team has suggested that Daniels was angling for a spot on The Apprentice, a popular reality TV show then hosted by Trump, a New York real estate mogul.
Daniels confirmed that she hoped he would cast her on the show following their encounter. Asked by Trump’s lawyer if she was now making money off her story, she replied: “I’ve been making money by telling my story about what happened to me.”
Daniels says she ‘blacked out’ before sex
Daniels said Trump made sexual advances after inviting her to his hotel suite at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev. Daniels testified she grew up as the daughter of a low-income single mother.
She said Trump told her: “This is the only way you’re getting out of the trailer park.”
Daniels said she “blacked out” despite consuming no drugs or alcohol after Trump prevented her from leaving the room by blocking the door. She said she woke up on the bed with her clothes off.
Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial resumed in New York with porn star Stormy Daniels’s former lawyer testifying that he helped arrange the deal to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump ahead of the 2016 election.
“I was staring at the ceiling and didn’t know how I got there,” Daniels testified. “I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there.”
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she did not tell Trump to stop. “I didn’t say anything at all,” she said. She said she left the hotel room quickly afterward.
The Republican politician, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, says the trial is an attempt to hobble his bid to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the upcoming Nov. 5 election.
Wearing a black outfit and black glasses, Daniels testified that she worked in strip clubs and pornography after a childhood in which her mother was often gone for days at a time.
She said Trump greeted her at his hotel suite wearing satin pyjamas. She said she grew annoyed by his frequent interruptions and asked him: “Are you always this arrogant and pompous?”
Trump then dared Daniels to spank him with a magazine, and she obliged. “He was much more polite after that,” she said.
“That’s bullshit,” Trump appeared to say as he watched from the defendant’s table.
The alleged encounter took place while Trump was married to his current wife, Melania.
Warned not to speak out
Daniels said she confided in only a few people about the sex. She said she saw Trump at public events on several occasions in the years that followed but then fell out of touch with him after he did not put her on The Apprentice.
She testified she was determined to keep the incident private after being threatened in a parking lot in 2011 but changed her mind during Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, when he faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehaviour.
“My motivation wasn’t money, it was to get the story out,” she said.
Trump lawyer Susan Necheles grilled Daniels on apparent inconsistencies in the account of the parking-lot threat she has told over the years. “The whole story was made up, wasn’t it?” Necheles asked.
“No, none of it was made up,” Daniels said.
Daniels ultimately negotiated a $130,000 payment with Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to obscure the fact that he reimbursed Cohen for the payment.
They say that amounts to an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of people with potentially damaging information that might have swayed some voters.
The case is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is the only one certain to go to trial before the election.
The other cases includes charges that Trump tried to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandled classified documents after leaving office. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.
